The army's tail is wagging the dog

Something very bad is happening in the army. No Winograd Committee will take care of it. Like a person under pressure, the Israel Defense Forces is acting more and more in a way that appears to be a breach of its duty. A traumatized defense minister joins the somewhat frightening picture, in which the organization meant to protect us is unloading the responsibility it carries. The recurring symptoms have recently added up to a sydrome: The army's tail is wagging the dog, and its head is bowed.

The most dangerous phenomenon is the serial leaks from the General Staff regarding an anticipated war in the North. Twice in the past month, anonymous officials from IDF headquarters infiltrated the media headlines with such scare tactics. They told reporters, who did not quote any source, that according to the General Staff assessment, Syria and Hezbollah will begin a war this year.

During normal times, under convincing civilian leadership, such predictions would come under the IDF's reports to the government about enemy preparedness. Now they have become anonymous leaks, address unknown. The "Will there be a war?" question in the headlines sounds now like the immortal line from a skit by the Hagashah Hahiver comedy troupe.

When the defense minister was asked to comment on this spin from his generals, some of whom are being investigated by the Winograd Committee examining last summer's war in Lebanon, he was quick to announce he had no knowledge of the predictions. This is strange. If there is going to be a war, this time the person who accumulated only scant information about the preparedness of Hezbollah should be more knowledgeable. But Amir Peretz has no idea about any upcoming war or about General Staff provocation.

If the threats of war were indeed a partisan act by hidden elements in the IDF elite, they provided further evidence of the defense minister's lack of control over the sensitive organization under his responsibility. Are there unidentified warmongers wandering around the General Staff? What will the prime minister and defense minister do to find them out and keep them away from this center of power?

GOC Central Command Yair Naveh has recently been playing a prominent role in this scene of military abandon. Time will tell whether, after retiring, he will find a place at the top of a right-wing party after, as did former Shin Bet security service deputy chief Yisrael Hasson. As of now, worried citizens can ask themselves how it is that a general can stay on the job who places responsibility for terror attacks on the civilian leadership if restrictions are lifted in the roadblock regime or if he is prevented from banning West Bank Palestinians from getting a ride with Israelis? "Your political calculations don't interest me," Haaretz quoted Naveh as daring to tell Peretz and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. It's the same Naveh, who also previously warned them that their eagerness to help Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas would make it more difficult to thwart suicide bombings.

This is also the perspective seen in the Jewish community in Hebron. After video documentation of settlers' rampaging and targeting the remainder of the Palestinians, in a cage-like apartment above the Hebron market, Olmert said he was embarrassed. Peretz was ashamed. His deputy, Ephraim Sneh, visited the area and wrung his hands while a settler shouted "slut" at him, too. But here comes the mistaken defense minister once again: He didn't know this week that the soldiers have the authority to act against the unruly settlers. It's been years, though, that the IDF has been sitting on its hands in Hebron. The human rights organization Yesh Din has warned about the situation and petitioned the High Court of Justice, including against Naveh. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, B'Tselem, Gush Shalom, Machsom Watch and other groups have for years left no doubt that the army is fleeing from its responsibility in the West Bank. It's apparently easier for the army to crush the Palestinians than to fight with the settlers, despite court orders.

Before last summer's war in Lebanon and in its aftermath, the army has been shown to be problematic to an extent that we had not previously known. It's not just the nature of its preparedness or its conduct. A wounded and bitter army is in itself a strategic danger. Chillingly, it tends to feel that the civilian leadership has stabbed it in the back, is pursuing it, isn't letting it "work." The IDF has become too arrogant since 1967. Now it may be too scarred and unconfident. Have such bad times arrived that we must be wary of the army?